Having previously visited the only Division I college basketball venue in the state of Minnesota (Williams Arena - University of Minnesota), I can't say I was thrilled to see the University of St. Thomas decide to transition to Division I for the 2020-21 season since it meant I needed to make a return trip to Minnesota to re-complete the state. St. Thomas, located in St. Paul, MN, made the extremely rare double division jump in going from Division III all the way up to Division I because they basically outgrew and outspent their former Division III home. Going into this game, I had no idea what to expect from the campus or the arena given the arena is the same as it was when they played in Division III and, honestly, I didn't expect much from the game itself either since this was another unfortunate non-D1 matchup as the Tommies hosted the Crown College Polars in this contest.
The arena itself surprised me as it was pretty decent for a low major D1 school, which means it probably was an incredible venue for a Division III school. Schoenecker Arena is located in the middle of the St. Thomas campus and holds approximately 1,800 fans, though there was certainly not a capacity crowd on this frigid December evening. While most of the venue has general admission bench seats, there are a few sideline sections that offer chairbacks, though at $35 each for a non-D1 game, these sections were unsurprisingly sparsely populated for this game. Additionally, while the student section isn't very large, there were a few dozen students who were pretty into the game, which certainly helped to make the atmosphere of the game better than expected for a game that expectedly turned into a blowout pretty quickly.
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| Pregame at Scheonecker Arena |
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| Opening tip between the Tommies and the Polars |
It was pretty impressive to think St. Thomas absolutely crushed a team that just 2 years ago would have been in the same division as them. It wouldn't surprise me to see St. Thomas become fairly competitive in the Summit League over the next couple years and even challenge for a conference tournament title before their Division I transition period ends a la Bellarmine in 2021-22.
Tommies attempting a 3-pointer
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